


'Til Somebody Catches a Feeling

by track_04



Category: Arashi (Band), Johnny's Entertainment, Kanjani8 (Band)
Genre: Humor, M/M, Online Dating, Superheroes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-20
Updated: 2012-09-21
Packaged: 2017-11-14 17:51:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/517919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/track_04/pseuds/track_04
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Being an Idol by day and Super Secret Crime Fighter by night was hard work.  Being an Idol by day and Super Secret Crime Fighter by night <i>with</i> a meddling little brother, a useless sidekick, and what probably qualified as an epic mancrush on someone you'd met on the internet was damn near impossible.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Beltenebra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beltenebra/gifts).



> Originally written for 2010's je_rainbowbridge. Inspiration taken from Doctor Horrible, Dexter's Laboratory, We Are Scientists, The Incredibles, Sky High, and basically anything involving diabolical schemers ever. Title taken from [the Bob Schneider song](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O991CGNvCfc) of the same name. Extra special thanks to diefleder_tey for beta'ing and being super awesome sauce and both diefleder_tey and missmonster for letting me babble ideas at them at will while writing this.

It all started with an otherwise innocent looking personal ad.

No, scratch that. Looking back, it all started with a moment of drunken clarity when Yoko was 23 and thought it would be a good idea to tell his youngest brother the truth about his life. That truth being that he, one Yokoyama "Yu" Kimitaka, was not all that he appeared to be.

Namely that, in addition to being an idol in Johnny's and Associates' most recently debuted group (which was already kind of cool and came with its own built in bragging rights), he was also a super secret crime fighter--complete with utility belt, sidekick and a collection of his very own witty one-liners--who went by the name of Wonder Boy in his free time.

"... you're what?" Mitsuru had his head cocked to one side, his eyebrows arched nearly to his hairline as he gave Yoko a patently skeptical look. The type of look that Yoko wasn't really used to getting since his little brother was still at that stage where everything Yoko said was awesome and just taken as fact and believed.

Except apparently this particular revelation didn't qualify.

"A secret crime fighter."

His brother blinked, the half-empty bag of chips resting, forgotten, in his lap as he continued to radiate disbelief. "You're drunk."

"I'm not--" Yoko started, tripping over his words a bit, then starting over with a sheepish smile. "Okay, maybe I'm a _little_ drunk--" Yoko ignored Mitsuru's answering snort. "--but this isn't because I'm drunk. Well, okay, maybe it is a little, but only because I'd never tell you this kind of thing if I was sober. But it's still true!"

"You really want me to believe that you're some sort of superhero? Seriously?" The look on Mitsuru's face was growing more and more unimpressed by the second. "I mean, I know you wear some pretty bizarre costumes for work, but I don't think those make you a superhero. Although you probably _could_ blind people with all those sequins."

"I'm not a _superhero_. You have to have special powers for that." Yoko drummed his fingers on his knee and leaned forward in his chair, trying for his best I-am-your-older-brother-and-I-deserve-respect look. Judging by the look he got in return, it wasn't a success. "I'm a _crime fighter_."

"My mistake, then," Mitsuru said. "I _totally_ believe you now." Yeah, the look had definitely not worked.

Yoko sighed and sat back, pouting slightly into his beer. "If I show you my utility belt, then will you believe me?"

Mitsuru shrugged and gave him a look that said, yes, he was just humoring Yoko and no, he didn't really care if the other knew it. "...maybe."

And that was how it all started. Basically.

... okay, so maybe it had taken two more weeks and Yoko showing Mitsuru his utility belt and his costume (and then Maru's costume, and then this really awesome teleporter ray thing that he'd borrowed from his mentor on pain of death) before his brother had actually believed him, but the night that Yoko had chosen to spill the beans in the first place had really been the start.

The start of Mitsuru's current, totally unhealthy obsession with fixing Yoko up with his very own Arch Nemesis.

As if it wasn't perfectly respectable for a crime fighter his age to still be having mostly casual battles with random criminal masterminds and evil geniuses and mad scientists. Like being unattached and still shopping around in the hopes of finding that one enemy who had the plans that you wanted to foil for the rest of your life was somehow a _bad thing_. Like not having found that special someone by the time you were thirty meant you were doomed to die old and alone and arthritic, spending your final days on some park bench trying to tell stories of your adventures and daring-do to kids who laughed in your face and called you a has-been and probably made a point of beating you up and stealing your bus fare.

Which Yoko might have already been thinking about a lot, since he was twenty-nine and twenty-nine was one small step from thirty, which really wasn't that far from forty and then fifty and, ultimately, lonely old age and stolen bus fare and death, but it wasn't like he needed his brother nagging at him constantly and _reminding_ him about it.

And it wasn't really like he wanted an Arch Nemesis anyway. He was just prone to fits of irrational worry, was all. He was fine leaving things the way they were and enjoying his life while he was still unattached.

Really.

"Seriously, when was the last time you fought the same super villain twice? Do you even remember?" Mitsuru was staring at him across the table, ruining what would have otherwise been a perfectly good night out on the town with his annoying inability to keep his nose out of Yoko's business. He was such a mother hen sometimes and, really, it was irritating. Yoko was the older brother here and clearly that should have been _his job_.

"I don't know. Things have been busy lately with the album promo and everything. I haven't had as much time for crime fighting."

Mitsuru pursed his lips and gave him that unimpressed look that had been the bane of Yoko's existence for the last six years. "And before that?"

Yoko shrugged and took a too-large bite of curry to avoid having to answer.

"So whatever happened to the Mitsuwa Menace? You guys seemed to really be hitting it off there for awhile." If Yoko hadn't had a mouth full of curry he would have sighed at Mitsuru's lack of subtlety. "He sent me that threatening letter and everyone knows threatening your opponent's family is the first step to a serious rivalry."

Yoko swallowed loudly and grabbed a napkin off the table to swipe at his mouth. "He sent you that letter because _you_ sent him all those creepy stalker messages first."

"First of all, Maru was the one who sent them. I just wrote them. And second, they weren't creepy stalker messages. I just wanted to know what his intentions toward you were."

"Yeah, creepy. And seriously embarrassing." Yoko sighed. "It doesn't matter anyway, because he and Protector Man have been arch nemeses pretty much since they were in high school."

"Protector Man? Really?"

"Picking out names isn't really his strong suit."

Mitsuru snorted and turned his attention back to his half-eaten dinner (that Yoko was paying for), and Yoko started to think that this awkward bit of conversation might actually, blessedly, be over.

"I found this website I think you might like."

Yoko looked up, taking that as a definite sign that the conversation was going other, much more awesome places (his brother had been the one to introduce him to Wikipedia and YouTube, after all). "Oh yeah?"

"Yeah, eEnemy.com."

"Sounds cool. What is it, a game site or something?"

"Not exactly." Mitsuru's eyes slid to the side, focusing on the cracked formica tabletop like it was the most fascinating thing in the world. "It's a social networking website."

"Social networking?"

"You know, you post a profile with some information about yourself and make friends, talk to people... maybe hook up with someone in the hopes that they're your long lost nemesis. The usual."

"Mitsuru. No." Yoko mentally retracted his earlier assessment of his brother's awesomeness. Showing him how to wiki and use YouTube didn't make up for the fact that he was currently trying to con him into signing up for a _dating website_.

Or the super secret crime fighter/evil genius equivalent of one. Close enough.

"Come on, it's just a harmless website. You put up a bit of information and wait for people to respond. It's not like it even takes any effort."

"If word gets out that I'm taking out ads on the Internet, no one is going to want me to put a stop to their evil plans! Only losers who can't find someone to fight on their own do that kind of thing."

"There are plenty of perfectly normal people who sign up for things like this."

"Really? Name one."

"The Shinjuku Savior."

"That's--wait, seriously?"

Mitsuru nodded, looking far too smug for Yoko's liking. "It's where he met the Harajuku Hag."

"Huh." Yoko blinked, lost in thought for a moment before he shook his head and shot his brother a frown. The Savior and the Hag were pretty epic, true, but that didn't make signing up for a dating website any less loserly. "Okay, so _one_ not lame person has used the site. That doesn't mean that I'm going to run out and sign up."

"Why not? It's not like you have to do anything besides put up a profile and wait and see what happens. You don't even have to reply to anyone who messages you if you don't want to," Mitsuru said, giving Yoko the pouty faced looked that he'd perfected by age four and that Yoko, being the secret marshmallow of a big brother that he was, found nearly impossible to say no to. "Can't you just give it a try? For me?"

Yoko knew he was going to give in as he looked down to stare sullenly at his curry, but he still made a point to make Mitsuru wait through three minutes of awkward silence on principle before letting him know as much.

"I don't have to pay anything for this thing, do I?"

"Not a dime." Mitsuru grinned smugly, like he hadn't expected the conversation to end any other way. Brat. "I'll help you set up your profile after dinner."

And _that_ was how Yoko ended up reading the aforementioned innocent looking personal ad in the first place, which was where things _really_ began.

\--

The first month after Mitsuru guilted Yoko into signing up for that stupid website passed without incident. He got a few messages from people wanting to battle (mostly 13 year olds who talked almost entirely in emoji and thought the website was some big, elaborate joke cooked up by someone named "2ch") and a few really weird messages from some middle aged mad scientist who really seemed to like to take inappropriate pictures of his ray gun. But, other than a brief message advertising a clearance sale at _Utility Belts 'R Us_ , nothing was really interesting or useful.

Not that he'd been hoping to actually _meet_ anyone on the stupid website, mind you.

In fact, he would have forgotten about it altogether if it hadn't been for Maru. He'd made the mistake of mentioning it to him a few days after he'd gotten his first message from Inappropriate Use of a Ray Gun Man in a bid for some sympathy. He'd gotten the sympathy like he wanted (after reliving some of the more horrifying details), but at the terrible price of Maru's curiosity.

Maru, unfortunately, didn't think it was enough to just take Yoko's word about how stupid and lame the website was. He wanted to see for himself.

Which would explain how they both ended up seated in front of the computer in their secret lair a few weeks later, skimming through the latest eEnemy personal listings (well, Maru was skimming and reading off the ones he thought were interesting; Yoko was staging a protest that involved pouting and pointing out the many reasons why said ads were not nearly as interesting as Maru seemed to think and why Maru was probably just about the worst sidekick ever for making him suffer through this. All of which Maru ignored).

"Hey, what about this one? _Lonely Mad Scientist Seeks Someone to Thwart His Evil Plans_. That sounds promising."

"No way. I'd rather not have anything to do with any mad scientists _or_ their ray guns anytime soon, thanks." Yoko sighed and slumped over his DS, trying to focus his attention on his game and block out Maru's words. If he was going to come over for a "strategy session", the least he could do was not waste their time looking at creepy personal ads on some stupid website. Especially when his reading aloud of said creepy ads was distracting Yoko from his nightly dose of digital monster ass-kicking.

Seriously, worst side kick in the fight against evil _ever_.

"Oh, here's one for an Evil Genius who wants someone who can stop him from starting an atomic winter."

"You know I don't do radiation after what happened with Atom Man. I thought my hair wasn't going to grow back."

"Good point. I guess there's no drama to cover it this time." Maru clicked the back button and hummed thoughtfully. "What about a crooked city official with a grudge against humanity?"

"Unless that grudge is because they fell into a vat of acid or were horribly disfigured in some sort of fire, no."

Maru leaned in, squinting at the screen for a long moment before giving a disappointed sounding "no". Yoko would have never admitted it, but he was actually sort of relieved. Crazy disfigured super villains were cool in theory, but they tended to have a higher track record when it came to killing their opponents (as opposed to just monologuing at them and maybe getting in a few good punches before they inevitably messed up, letting their enemy escape), and Yoko didn't really feel like he was at a place in his life where he was ready for the level of commitment that included certain death.

"How about _Sleepless and Sinister in Shinjuku_?"

Yoko didn't dignify that one with an answer.

"Huh... _Looking for that special Saiyan to defeat my Red Ribbon Army_. They have their own army name. That's pretty impressive."

Yoko snapped his head up just in time to see Maru scroll past the ad in question. "Wait, go back."

"To _Sleepless and Sinister in Shinjuku_?"

"No, the Red Ribbon Army one."

Maru gave Yoko a brief, curious look before nodding and scrolling back up to find the ad in question, opening it up and leaning to the side to give Yoko room to read over his shoulder.

**_LOOKING FOR THAT SPECIAL SAIYAN TO DEFEAT MY RED RIBBON ARMY_ **

do you like battles? do you want to fight an evil genius? do you like to have fun and think animals are cool? then you should email me!! i am an evil genius looking for someone to do battle with, casually or on a more regular basis. all you need is to be fun and have a sense of humor.

ps crime fighters only. no androids or anyone w/ a kangaroo!!!

Yoko opened his mouth to ask Maru to click on the poster's profile (because, seriously, anyone who referenced Dragonball in their subject line had to at least be a little bit awesome), but he already seemed to be a step ahead of him and clicked the link before Yoko could get so much as a word out.

Which probably explained why Yoko kept him around, despite being the worst sidekick ever.

Yoko read through the guy's profile fully expecting to find out that he was creepy or lame or already in a full time rivalry and looking for a bit of quickie battle action on the side, but what he found instead was even more of a shock.

The guy was actually, legitimately _awesome_.

He liked travel and action shows and sports and animals and was completely, blessedly unattached and, while he seemed to like to use capslock and exclamation points a lot (which Yoko was willing to forgive because, hello, awful at spelling), he didn't seem creepy at all.

He was, in all honesty, perfect.

Which may or may not have been suspicious in and of itself, since it didn't seem to add up that someone who seemed so cool didn't have enemies beating down their door left and right. Especially when he (if the guy's profile was to be believed) had an army of robot monkeys at his disposal.

 _Robot monkeys_. All the coolness of robots and the slightly creepy vibe of monkeys, rolled into one.

It was almost too good to be true, as Yoko's inherent sense of pessimism took a moment to remind him.

Because evil geniuses with armies of robot monkeys were not unattached. And if they were, they certainly weren't out there on the Internet waiting to fall into Yoko's lap like this.

So, yeah, it was more than a little suspicious. And yet....

"Oh, he likes capybaras!" Maru turned to give him a starry eyed look, and Yoko decided that, suspicion or not, sending one little message couldn't possibly hurt anything.

And if the guy ended up being lame, well, he could just say that it was Maru's fault for making him look through the stupid ads anyway.

Or point out that it really wasn't fair to expect him to turn down the possibility of _robot monkeys_.

Seriously.

\--

It took Yoko three days to actually get up the nerve to reply to the ad. During which time he _did not_ read the ad over and over, or creep on the guy's profile page, or skim every issue of his Dragonball manga for a witty reference to throw into his reply, or text Maru 300 times a day for advice and reassurance.

And he certainly didn't start thinking about the possibility that the guy was far too cool for him and would probably just ignore his message when he got it and leave Yoko all on his own until he was old and useless and his utility belt and other gadgets were all outdated and nobody wanted to fight him.

And he most definitely did not write sixty different versions of his message before settling on a final draft.

And he absolutely, positively didn't call Ryo long distance and plead with him to look over said message for mistakes before he sent it off (because Maru might have been his sidekick, but it wasn't like there was any way he would have been able to keep the secret of his identity from the rest of his groupmates even if he tried).

Yes, all-in-all he was pretty level headed about the whole situation, if he did say so himself.

Which was why it made sense when he _didn't_ squeal like a girl in the middle of their dressing room when he got a reply to his message two days later. And even if he _had_ , Maru probably would have squealed too when Yoko calmed down long enough to tell him what was going on, thereby justifying his excitement.

Also, the guy-- _The Shadow King_ , according to his email, which was a pretty badass name--had sent a picture of one of his robot monkeys wearing a sparkly green party hat and smoking a cigar.

So if he actually _had_ made any girly noises? Yeah, totally justified.

\--

It turned out that getting a reply to his message on that particular day, while mostly awesome, had some unforeseen disadvantages.

The first being that, Yoko's work schedule was extremely busy and he didn't have any hope of replying (or, as was more likely, sitting in front of his computer watching the cursor blink and staring at the blank screen while silently freaking out) until sometime after 7, when they finally wrapped up the last of their interviews for the day.

The second being that Maru and Yasu both had plans for that night, which meant that he couldn't send them panicked texts and coerce them into coming over and writing said message for him when he inevitably wussed out and failed to do so himself.

And the third, and perhaps most irritating, being that tonight was a Tuesday, and Tuesdays were when Mitsuru called for their weekly catch up session. Not that he minded this, since he liked talking to his brother when he wasn't being a nag (or when he got to nag him in return), but he just _knew_ that he was going to pester him about this whole Arch Nemesis business and the stupid website until he ended up spilling about these new developments. And once he did that, his life was essentially over, since Mitsuru would never, ever let him live down the fact that he'd been _right_ (although Yoko was still willing to argue this point).

So, yeah, those all put a definite damper on things after his initial excitement. Enough so that he was back to sulking half-heartedly as he packed up his bag at the end of the day and headed for the door to make the journey home, where he would no doubt end up trying to drown his woes in ice cream and video games.

Luck seemed to be on his side for once, though, since he hadn't even managed to mope his way halfway through the parking lot when, miracle of miracles, his phone went off. He stopped and dug it out of his pocket, flipping it open to find a text and a very unexpected dinner invitation from Aiba waiting for him.

Which was probably the most perfect distraction that he could have asked for. Because Aiba was not only good company, but he was good company that Yoko didn't get to see that often, so they always had plenty to talk about just playing catch up with one another's lives. And, to make things even better, Aiba also suffered from a shyness much like the one that had plagued Yoko all of his life, which meant that Yoko didn't feel completely guilty being slightly awkward or socially inept around him.

Plus Aiba was just fun to be around.

Perfect distraction.

Aside from the fact that Aiba had no idea about Yoko's super secret crime fighter identity, of course, but that just gave Yoko an excuse not to talk about the website or his new online penpal/maybe future arch nemesis, which meant less potential for fretting.

After a quick phone call and some on the fly planning, they agreed on a time and place to meet and Yoko's day was starting to look up again.

And continued to look up when, a few hours later, he'd managed to eat nearly his weight in yakiniku and drink himself into a happy, not quite trashed but definitely not sober, place. Across the booth, Aiba had obviously found his own happy place, if the way he was giggling and slurring his words around the edges was any sort of indication.

"Thanks for coming out tonight," Aiba said, grinning across the table at him, his expression as relaxed and lazy as Yoko felt. "You saved me from having to go on a blind date with one of my brother's friends."

"So you're just using me as an excuse not to be stuck on a blind date? I'm not sure how I feel about that." Yoko snorted softly, sagging bonelessly against his chair. He would have been more offended if he didn't feel so drunk and happy and full, but the most he could manage at the moment was a slight, buzzing annoyance.

"No, no." Aiba laughed, motioning at the waitress to bring them more beer, a move that effectively washed away any and all of Yoko's lingering annoyance. It was hard to be mad at anyone who was so willing to ply you with alcohol. "I really did want to see you. The _date_ was just a good excuse to give you a call."

"Good save." Yoko laughed and smiled broadly at the waitress as she set the beer on the edge of their table. He held out his glass and shook it a little, still grinning as Aiba filled it with hands that were surprisingly steady for the length of time they'd been drinking "You should tell your brother he should try to set you up on more blind dates if it means you'll call me more often, then."

"No way. I'm not encouraging him." Aiba managed to somehow wrinkle his nose in disgust and still keep grinning. "He'll never stop."

"One of those, huh? He'd get along with Mitsuru."

"Has he been trying to set you up on blind dates, too?"

"No." Yoko pulled a face at the thought, hoping Mitsuru never got _that_ particular notion into his head. He could just imagine answering the door to his apartment to find some crazy-eyed criminal standing there, clutching a bouquet of wilted flowers in one hand and a death ray in the other. No thank you. "He just likes to nag. He thinks I need to find a neme--er, numero uno."

"Numero uno?" Aiba tilted his head slightly to the side in confusion, holding out his empty glass.

"Yeah." Yoko coughed and avoided Aiba's eyes as he reached for the bottle to refill the other's glass for him. The only problem with drinking with Aiba was that his tongue got a hell of a lot looser once he'd had a few, making it harder to remember what he could and couldn't talk about around the other. "I guess that's what the kids are calling it these days. Weird, right?"

" _Numero uno_ ," Aiba repeated the words slowly, rolling them around on his tongue like he was tasting them. "I don't know, I kind of like it."

Yoko coughed again and reached for his beer.

"You'd better hope he never decides to do more than nag you about it."

"I am, trust me." Yoko intended to stop and steer the conversation to other, less embarrassing and potentially dangerous to his secret identity places, but apparently his mouth had different ideas. "Although he already conned me into signing up for this stupid website he found and wouldn't shut up about."

"A website? Like a dating website?" Aiba grinned, his voice free of judgment. Which was good, because Yoko felt like enough of a loser admitting he'd signed up for that kind of thing--even if it was only to stop Mitsuru's nagging and he couldn't really be blamed for his actions. "Is it any good?"

"Not really. A lot of kids pretending to be older than they are and creepy old guys who like to take pictures." Aiba winced in sympathy while Yoko rubbed at the back of his neck and let out a nervous laugh. "There's one person I've talked to who seems kind of interesting, but that's about it. Not that I'm looking to date them or anything. Just, you know, making friends. And if I talk to someone then maybe Mitsuru will get off my case."

"Making new friends is always nice." Aiba smiled and Yoko didn't really see anything but complete honesty there. "Although if you really want company you could always invite me out to eat more often."

Yoko laughed and chucked a napkin at Aiba's head, startling a giggle out of him. "You're the one who's always too busy to answer my calls."

Aiba had the decency to actually look embarrassed, so Yoko decided it was okay to forgive him for always ditching him. "Next time you call, I promise to answer."

"You're just saying that because I always end up paying for part of your share of the bill."

"You could always order something more expensive so things are more even."

"And then the bill would be even more," Yoko pointed out with an exaggerated huff that Aiba seemed to see right through, judging by his laughter.

"I think you just like complaining."

"Maybe."

"I don't mind." Aiba trailed a finger over the side of his glass, drawing absentminded patterns in the condensation collecting there, his face still set in a fond smile. "I promise I'll call you more often."

It was most likely a lie (unintentional, as they were both adults and had lives and busy schedules and not a lot of time for evenings like this), but Yoko was surprisingly okay with that. Considering he'd basically been lying to Aiba about what he did with most of his free time for their entire friendship, he figured letting this one slide was only fair.

\--

It took two more days before Yoko actually got up the nerve to reply to the Shadow King's message. Or a day and a half, depending on how you looked at it, since he was too hung over for most of the morning after his dinner date with Aiba to really feel anything other than his splitting headache. It eventually faded after a handful of aspirin and enough water to make his eyeballs float, though, making room for fun things like nervousness and anxiety and self-doubt. It was then that he remembered the message sitting in his inbox, waiting patiently for an answer.

After a day and a half of worry (that did _not_ amount to a minor freak out, regardless of what Subaru or Ryo or anyone else said), Yoko managed to type up a reply to his new friend's message. Or, rather, Maru typed it up while Yasu gave him feedback and Yoko was busy _not_ freaking out behind them. Whatever.

The important thing wasn't who typed the message, anyway, but rather the sentiment behind it. Which wasn't at all the emotional equivalent of a carefully folded sheet of notebook paper with "Do you like me? CHECK ONE" scrawled on it in rainbow colored ink. That would have just been pathetic, after all, and Yoko didn't do pathetic.

He was a crime fighter. He did cool and mysterious.

Besides, Yoko's... whatever it was with his new online pal hadn't really reached the "do you like me" note stage just yet. It was more at the stage where Yoko was too busy doodling his crush's name all over the margins of his notebook and making cow eyes at him from the back of the class because he was too shy to actually cross a few rows of desks to talk to him and possibly risk facing rejection.

(Not, of course, that Yoko had any sort of raging man crush on The Shadow King with his stupid Dragonball references and robot monkeys and the closet full of super awesome dooms day devices that he probably had sitting around. That word choice had obviously been strictly for the sake of metaphor.)

The important thing here was that the message got sent and that it only took 12 hours to get a reply this time, making it the first thing that Yoko saw in his inbox the next morning (and just for the record, he hadn't purposefully gotten up twenty minutes early just to be sure he'd have time to compulsively refresh said inbox 500 times before he had to leave for work; he just hadn't been able to fall back to sleep).

And this time it only took Yoko a day and a half to muster up the courage to reply, and even if he still made Maru type it out for him, the words were all Yoko's.

\--

After the first few anxiety ridden messages, Yoko found that sending his replies kept getting easier and easier, until eventually it became almost like a routine, a cycle of _get message, send reply, get reply, send message, lather, rinse, repeat_ that wormed its way into Yoko's days and made even the really bad ones seem that much better for being there.

By two months into his online friendship/rivalry building, he was typing up his replies to Shadow (as he'd started referring to him in the privacy of his own head) all on his own, sharing some of the choicer tidbits with Maru and Yasu and Mitsuru (because it was next to impossible to keep something like this a secret from your nosy little brother forever, no matter how hard you tried), but otherwise keeping most of their text based conversations to himself.

He ended up spilling a lot more about himself than he'd ever thought he would to someone whose face he'd never even seen, but he'd learned enough about the other in return that it seemed like a fair trade. Through their nearly daily exchanged messages, he'd learned things like the name of Shadow's sidekick (The Angler), his favorite food (ramen), how he got into the business (his family had been evil geniuses for sixteen generations and counting, so it hadn't been so much a choice as an expectation), his favorite incarnation of Dr. Who (a toss-up between Four and Ten), and his favorite ice cream (chocolate chocolate chip with cookie dough chunks).

By the time Yoko found out that the Dragonball reference in Shadow's ad that had lured him in in the first place was thanks to Shadow's sidekick and not the man himself, he already considered the other enough of a friend not to care. He'd even fessed up to making Maru type up those first few messages for him and they'd had a good laugh over it together.

(That is to say, Yoko had laughed and was going to assume that the "LOLOLOL" he got in Shadow's message the next day meant the other had done the same.)

By the end of the third month, Yoko felt completely confident calling the other man his friend when people asked who he was spending so much time emailing, even if they still hadn't met or spoken in person and technically all they were to each other at the moment was a blinking cursor and words on a screen.

So, when Aiba texted him out of the blue at the end of that third month, asking him if he was up for dinner at an Okonomiyaki place that apparently came highly recommended, Yoko might have even been the tiniest bit excited to tell his old friend all about his new one (with certain important details altered to protect the innocent, of course). And not solely because his groupmates all seemed to be getting a little sick of hearing about it by that point, either. He figured if anyone could appreciate just how cool Shadow was, it was probably Aiba.

"He sounds like a cool guy," Aiba said when Yoko paused long enough to stuff his mouth full of surprisingly delicious (not Osaka level delicious, but what was?) okonomiyaki, actually giving the other a chance to speak.

"Sorry," Yoko managed around a bite and swallowed quickly, offering a sheepish grin and feeling slightly guilty for essentially commandeering the conversation and going on and on like a school boy with his first crush (even if he did not, not, _not_ have a crush here). "So, what about you? Has your brother tricked you into any more blind dates lately?"

"No. I have someone I'm interested in, so he decided to leave me alone."

"Someone you're interested in?" Yoko waggled his eyebrows and got a grin in return. "What's the lucky girl's name?"

Aiba giggled, the sound edging on nervous. He hesitated a moment before answering, his eyes looking a little shifty as he reached for his beer. "...Wanda."

"Wanda?" Yoko scrunched up his face slightly in confusion. Not really the kind of name he'd been expecting. For one, he hadn't been expecting something foreign (because that's what he was going to assume it was, since it definitely wasn't Japanese). For another, he might not have been an expert on these types of things, but even if it was hard to tell with foreign names, it seemed a bit... old-fashioned? Not at all sexy, that was for sure.

"She's not from around here. Tokyo, that is." The look that Aiba gave him then said it all, really. Yoko may not have been harboring any secret crushes, but he was about 99.9% positive that a certain someone else was.

"American?" Aiba made a sound that Yoko was going to assume meant agreement (hard to tell when the other had his mouth stuffed with food suddenly). "Why'd she move to Tokyo?"

Aiba said something that sounded a lot like "mmph nnghh llthss" around the mouthful of food and Yoko stared at him, trying to decide if he was expected to understand that. Luckily for him, the answer to that was apparently "no", since Aiba repeated himself once he'd finished chewing and didn't have a mouthful of cabbage impeding his ability to hold a conversation. "She doesn't live here. It's a long distance relationship." Aiba shrugged and waved his chopsticks in the air between them, grinning at Yoko almost bashfully as he corrected himself. "Or friendship. A long distance friendship."

"So, what's she like?" Yoko asked as he sat back. He knew that it had been the right question to ask when Aiba smiled wide and started to ramble.

Maybe it was the double whammy of good food and good company making him feel more relaxed than he should have, but Yoko wasn't as surprised as he probably should have been when he realized a half-hour into Aiba's recitation of all of Wanda's merits that he was actually enjoying listening to the way Aiba talked about his mystery girl with the dowdy name. Or maybe it was just that Yoko could understand where he was coming from now, since he had a mystery villain of his own now. Or he would, should someday he and Shadow finally decide to take that final step and have a real life, honest to god hero on villain battle.

Which he might have secretly hoped would be sooner rather than later.

(And, no, that still did not mean he had a crush.)


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Being an Idol by day and Super Secret Crime Fighter by night was hard work. Being an Idol by day and Super Secret Crime Fighter by night _with_ a meddling little brother, a useless sidekick, and what probably qualified as an epic mancrush on someone you'd met on the internet was damn near impossible.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally written for [](http://jerainbowbridge.livejournal.com/profile)[**jerainbowbridge**](http://jerainbowbridge.livejournal.com/) and posted [here](http://community.livejournal.com/jerainbowbridge/20126.html)!

It took two more weeks and a close call with Doctor Destructo and his pack of genetically enhanced ninja squirrels for Yoko to start to finally admit that he might have a slight problem.

And that that problem might have had something to do with his feelings about a certain online friend whose clutches he may or may not have spent way too much time daydreaming about escaping.

Normally, Yoko would have been beside himself with glee to have been able to trade witty one liners with _the_ Doctor Destructo and to take on any of his mutant animal minions. It was something that he'd dreamed about ever since the day he'd first gotten his tights, back when he was still a fresh eyed fifteen year old sidekick bumbling through alleyways in Osaka and trying very hard not to trip over his cape.

And now here he was, a crime fighter with a sidekick of his own, taking him on just like he'd always dreamed of and living to tell the tale. By all rights he should have been thrilled.

And part of him _was_ thrilled, really, that he and Maru had taken on a big name baddie and managed to make it through without losing any of their limbs.

But another, larger part of him couldn't help but think that there was someone else whose plans he would have much rather been thwarting, whose evil laughter he'd much rather have ringing in his ears.

Even when he'd been fending off a swarm of rabid mutant ninja squirrels, all he'd been able to think about was how he wished the squirrels were a little more monkey-like and robotic. Which was really just pathetic.

And as if the fact that he'd ruined a perfectly good fight with one of Tokyo's premiere evil geniuses with his constant comparisons and moping wasn't bad enough, apparently he'd voiced all these thoughts aloud at some point when he and Maru were hobbling their way back to the Wonder Van. No sooner had he shut the driver's side door behind him and slipped off his mask, Maru was giving him a look that was full of understanding and could only be described as _wibbly_.

"You should ask him."

"Ask who?" Yoko dug the keys out of his pocket and started the van, glad he'd insisted on driving today since it gave him a good reason not to look Maru in the eye (and also because Maru drove like his 80-year-old landlady and Yoko wanted to be home sometime before next week).

"Shadow. You should ask him to meet up in real life sometime."

"I don't think he wants to," Yoko mumbled, not entirely believing it himself.

Maru sighed and Yoko didn't have to turn his head to know that he was getting the patented big eyed, fully of worry Maruyama stare. "Yoko...."

"What? He's never brought it up!"

"Maybe he was waiting for you to say something," Maru pointed out, being all reasonable like a... like a _something reasonable_ and making Yoko feel like an idiot.

"Or maybe he doesn't want to and he's hoping I won't bring it up."

"You never know until you ask." And there it was again, that irritating sense of reason. Yoko was pretty sure it was against the rules for his sidekick to act as _his_ voice of reason. Wasn't it supposed to be the other way around?

"We haven't even known each other that long. He probably doesn't want to just jump into large scale battles after sending each other a few messages online."

"It's not like you have to have a life or death battle your very first meeting." And now Maru was being optimistic on top of being reasonable, which really was just not fair. "You could start small. Stop him from robbing a bank or brainwashing people into ripping the tags off their mattresses and work your way up from there."

"So, what, tell him that I want to take this thing to the next level, but only if he promises to go slow?" Yoko snorted, fully aware that he was being difficult.

Maru answered him with a simple yes and left it at that, but Yoko could still feel the other looking at him, probably trying to see down into his soul so he could work out a way to fix all of Yoko's emotional pain for him or something.

After a few long, awkward minutes full of Maru staring at him, all silent and helpful in the passengers seat, Yoko gave in and slouched forward against the steering wheel, his posture resigned. "If I promise to ask him, can we stop talking about this?"

"Yes," Maru said, and Yoko knew that it would be a day at most before he brought it up again. Because Yoko's life was just not that easy.

And it just got worse when, during the rest of the silent ride back to their secret lair, Yoko realized that he wasn't nearly as annoyed as he should have been over Maru using reason to strong arm him into doing this. He was actually kind of _excited_.

Which probably meant, on further reflection, that he might have had the beginnings of a teeny, tiny, not-quite-man crush here.

That he was never admitting to anyone.

Ever.

Including himself.

\--

The message Yoko sent to Shadow that night was short and sweet and (Maru insisted) not at all desperate sounding.

The reply that he got back a mere thirty minutes later was even shorter, consisting of just nine little words that somehow managed to inspire a level of panic he hadn't felt since he'd had his first fumbling solo fight with The Enigma in a run down pachinko parlor in Umeda when he was 18.

_i'd love to meet you!!!1 how about this friday? :D_

This time, he was fully willing to admit that the squeal he made when he read it may have been a tiny bit on the girly side.

But he kind of didn't care.

\--

Time somehow managed to both drag and fly by as the week crept along toward Friday and the planned meeting with Shadow finally, finally drew near. He'd taken Maru's advice and suggested they start out with something simple--a run of the mill havoc wreaking operation in an empty civic center in Shinagawa, just something simple that would give Shadow the chance to show off his immense capacity for evil while Yoko tested out his utility belt against him.

Not the most glamorous of first fights, but he was actually okay with that. After all, if things went well, he stood a good chance of getting beat up by Shadow and/or foiling his plans a lot in the near future. Best to leave something to look forward to.

(The civic center where said fight was set to go down also had free parking around back, which pretty much sealed the deal, since the last thing Yoko needed to worry about while trying to impress his maybe future nemesis/raging man crush was whether or not he needed to put things on hold so he could run out and plug the meter on the Wonder Van to keep from getting a ticket.)

When Friday finally arrived, Yoko thought that he might actually, literally _die_ from anticipation. Which was ridiculous, given that he could normally do this kind of fight in his sleep. Out of the last dozen or so capers he and Maru had had, this was by far the easiest, and yet it seemed to loom over him like some sort of impossible doomsday mission and not a simple case of trying to prevent some art mischief in an empty building.

He spent more time in the days, and then hours, leading up to the big event with his phone practically glued to his ear, avoiding his brother's calls and strategizing (or, as it was more commonly known, whining) to Maru, while the other tried to reassure him that it would be perfectly fine and no, he was not going to make some horrible rookie mistake and trip over his cape and end up falling down a flight of stairs and breaking his neck and becoming an eternal laughing stock.

Which was semi-comforting, but it didn't stop him from extracting a promise from Maru that he'd stick close to him and grab him if he looked like he was going to make any falls that would result in injury, death or long-lasting humiliation.

"Does my emblem look faded to you?" Yoko ran a hand over his chest and squinted down at the bright yellow "WB" sewn there, running a hand over it nervously before he gave Maru a look that he was going to pretend wasn't totally terrified. "It looks faded to me."

Maru leaned in for a closer inspection, an action that Yoko suspected was mostly just to humor him, but that he appreciated anyway. "It looks good to me."

"You're sure?"

"Positive." Maru smiled and slid around to help Yoko straighten his cape, a nice fire engine red affair that he'd bought just for the occasion. "This cape makes you look taller, Yuuchin."

Yoko puffed out his chest a little at the compliment and examined his reflection in the bathroom mirror critically. "You think so?"

"Definitely," Maru said, peeking over Yoko's shoulder to grin at him in the mirror. "If I were an evil doer, I'd be terrified of you right now."

Yoko grinned back at him, anxiety fading a little as he turned away from the mirror and met Maru's eyes nervously. "You're not just saying that?"

"Of course not. You're totally going to strike fear into the hearts of everyone who sees you."

"I'd settle for just doing that to one person," Yoko mumbled, frowning a little. "Or, you know, at least making him mildly nervous."

"You will." Maru emphasized the words with a pat to the shoulder and a look that seemed so certain that there was no way Yoko _wouldn't_ go out there and wow the crap out of everyone who crossed his path that Yoko felt a little less like his stomach was trying to climb out of his throat just seeing it.

Sometimes (even if he never would have admitted it in a million years) he thought Maru might just be the best damn sidekick a boy could ever have.

Yoko coughed loudly and pulled away from Maru to head toward the front door. "Well, what are you waiting for? We should leave now if we want to beat traffic."

\--

The fight was, just as Yoko had feared, a complete and total disaster.

Well, okay, that might have been a bit of an exaggeration. There wasn't any epic, embarrassing failure on Yoko's part. No one fell down a flight of stairs and broke their neck, and Shadow didn't take one look at him and deem him an unworthy adversary and laugh in his face.

It was just that the fight didn't actually _happen_.

Which meant it couldn't technically be a complete and total disaster in the strictest sense of the words, but not having it happen at all was a failure in its own way, if you asked him.

Also a total let down, since it meant he didn't get to twirl his cape around the way he'd been practicing in front of the mirror at home or bust out any of the new and improved functions on his utility belt.

Worst of all was the fact that neither Yoko nor Maru had any idea that said fight wasn't going to happen until well after they'd already made their way to the agreed upon meeting place and were already inside.

When they arrived (fifteen minutes early, which Maru had to assure Yoko several times did not make him look desperate or over eager, just punctual), everything about the evening still seemed normal. The parking lot behind the center was surprisingly full for that time of evening, but aside from that nothing seemed amiss. Yoko squeezed the Wonder Van into the first available empty space and, after a quick check of his hair in the rearview mirror, climbed out and made his way to the back entrance of the building with Maru trailing behind him.

Everything continued to seem like it was going according to plan as they climbed the stairs leading to the fourth floor where Shadow's evil plot was set to go down, Yoko stopping every few steps to readjust his cape.

It even all seemed to be in order when Yoko froze on the fourth floor landing, turning to grab Maru's arm as the other leaned around him and reached for the door. "Wait!"

Maru glanced down at Yoko's hand on his arm and then back up at the other's face, cocking his head slightly to one side. "What's wrong?"

"I... I think I left the coffee pot on back at the lair," Yoko blurted out, turning to look at the stairwell behind them and looking very much like he wanted to bolt.

"I turned it off."

"Are you sure? Because the last time we left it on the lair smelled like burnt coffee for a week--"

"Positive. I even unplugged it, just to be safe." Maru smiled at him and Yoko huffed softly. Stupid, helpful sidekick.

"What about the iron?"

Maru frowned slightly. "When did we get an iron?"

"Everyone has an iron."

"I thought you said that we didn't need one since our capes were permanent press."

"Oh, right." Stupid permanent press capes. "Well, did you pack the grappling hooks? Because we're really going to need those. I think we should just go check the van--"

"They're built into our utility belts."

Stupid, awesome and useful utility belts. "Maybe I forgot to lock the van."

"Yuuchin."

Okay, so everything was going according to plan save for Yoko's very, very minor freak out.

Yoko threw the stairwell one more wistful look before he turned to meet Maru's eyes, the slight, knowing smile that the other was giving him making him scowl. Stupid, understanding smile. "What?"

"Breathe."

Yoko grumbled something unsavory about useless sidekicks, but took a deep breath anyway, his shoulders slumping a little as he gave Maru (who was still smiling, the bastard) an annoyed look.

"Better?" Maru extracted his arm from the deathgrip Yoko had on it, his smile brightening as Yoko nodded reluctantly. "Ready to go thwart some sinister plans?"

"... not really." Yoko sighed heavily as Maru gave him a sympathetic pat on the shoulder, steeling himself as Maru reached around him and yanked open the door. Ready or not, they were here and Maru was being so reasonable and _supportive_ that Yoko really didn't have the option of running away. (Not that it would be running away as much as making a strategic retreat so he could collect himself. Super secret crime fighters didn't run away.)

Except when they did, which was _almost_ what Yoko did after he stumbled through the door and out into the large room that looked a lot like an empty dance studio and an elementary school cafeteria.

A room that was currently the setting for what looked a hell of a lot like a child's birthday party, complete with balloons and rainbow colored streamers and a swarm of small, sticky faced children who stopped what they were doing one-by-one and turned to stare at them.

And that was precisely the moment when Yoko and Maru both figured out that something was amiss.

Yoko made a sound that was most definitely not a squeak and stumbled back into Maru, trying to edge the other back towards the stairwell door and away from the dozen or so sets of beady little children's eyes trained on them. He definitely did not remember any mention of balloons or small children when he and Shadow had talked about this. That was something he would have remembered.

"Um, Yoko," Maru whispered at his back, his hands clutching at Yoko's cape as he peeked over his shoulder. "Why are there kids in the middle of our battle ground?"

"Do I look like I know?" Yoko hissed, his voice growing more urgent as a woman stepped into the room through a side door and spotted them, confused for a moment before she pasted on a quick smile and strode purposefully toward them. "Maybe they're robot monkeys in disguise."

"... why would anyone disguise robot monkeys as children?"

"I don't know, the element of surprise? Because he's evil? Does he have to have a reason?"

"Well, most people would have _some_ sort of reason--"

"You're early. I wasn't expecting you until 7," the woman cut off the rest of Maru's reply, stopping a few feet in front of them to eye them critically. "And I thought I told Murai-san that I wanted Doraemon. Not... what are you two, exactly?"

"Wonderboy and Paaaan," Maru answered before Yoko could stop him.

The woman frowned slightly, her eyes settling on Yoko's cape. "Well, Yuuki does like super heroes, so I guess you'll do. But tell Murai-san that I would have appreciated a phone call first."

"Oh, actually we're not super--" Maru started. Yoko elbowed him sharply in the ribs and gave the woman, who was back to eyeing them suspiciously, a bright smile. "We'll tell Murai-san what you said. Our apologies."

She made a non-commital noise and waved her hand at the children swarming around the room. "I hope you can make balloon animals."

Yoko nodded, waiting for her to turn and walk away before he shot Maru a confused look. "... do you think this is some sort of cover?" It was the only way to explain it, really. It had to be a cover, because if it wasn't then that meant that they--that _he_ \--had been duped into falling for some sort of elaborate prank by Shadow. And Shadow wasn't the type of person who would do that.

"Maybe?"

Yoko glanced around nervously before continuing in a stage whisper, "Maybe he's going to jump out of a cake with a death ray."

"Wouldn't that be kind of risky? I don't think you're supposed to get icing on those things." Maru frowned, giving the idea entirely too much thought.

"It was just a suggestion."

"And wouldn't that have to be a big cake?"

Yoko shot him a look. "Okay, so he's not jumping out of a cake with a death ray. But we should still scope things out. You know... in case this is a cover."

Maru nodded, giving him a slightly sideways look before he whispered back, "Do you think they'll have ice cream?"

Yoko didn't dignify that with an answer.

Worst sidekick ever.

\--

Forty-five minutes and sixteen failed attempts at various balloon animals later, Yoko was convinced that the universe hated him. Nothing else could explain why he was currently stuck entertaining a dozen children hyped up on cake and fruit punch and _not_ trading cleverly worded quips and maybe a punch or two with the guy he'd been pining over for the past three months.

Well, okay, he had an idea of another explanation, but he didn't like that one any better. Mostly because it involved the possibility that this wasn't just some huge cosmic mix-up that they'd all laugh about later, and that Shadow had invited him here knowing that he'd be overrun with cake faced kindergartners as some sort of joke. And if that was that case, it meant that Shadow wasn't really interested in meeting Yoko at all and had probably been lying about everything that they'd talked about for these past few months.

Which, really, would just be typical, given the grand suckiness that was Yoko's life in general. He should have _known_ that something like this would happen.

Yoko's train of thought and self-loathing broke as Maru emerged from a side door and sidled up to him, glitter scattered in his hair and a party hat perched crookedly atop his head. "Nothing suspicious in the kitchen."

"Nothing, huh?" Yoko eyed the frosting stuck to the corner of Maru's mouth.

"I was checking for poison," Maru mumbled, wiping at his mouth with the back of his hand and having the grace to look sheepish. "What about out here?"

"Nothing. No robots or lasers or mind control devices anywhere. Just a lot of kids." Yoko sighed, knowing he sounded like a totally dejected loser and not really caring. "I think maybe we were tricked."

"But Shadow--"

"Shadow's a liar." Yoko snapped, scaring a way a child who had wandered up to them, probably to ask for some sort of elaborate balloon animal that Yoko had no idea how to make. His shoulders slumped as he watched the kid scurry away from them and made a point not to look at Maru and risk seeing the sympathetic, worried look that he could practically feel the other giving him. "Let's just go home. We've obviously been stood up."

"Okay." Maru patted him on the shoulder and Yoko stepped away, glad that he at least wasn't trying to argue. Now they just had to sneak out of here before the birthday boy's mom caught them and dragged them off for another round of. _Duck, Duck, Goose_.

Yoko wound his way through the room, avoiding children as best he could and wishing that he'd gone ahead and sprung for that invisible ray that he'd been eyeing a few months back. It was ridiculously hard to sneak anywhere when you were wearing a bright red cape. Which was funny, since stealth was supposed to be part of his job description.

Yoko didn't stop to check if Maru was behind him as they neared the door to the stairwell, the sound of the other's heavy footsteps enough to let him know that his partner was still right there with him (he obviously wasn't the only one who failed in the stealth department).

Yoko was just reaching for the door (and kicking himself internally for ever agreeing to come here in the first place) when it opened in front of him and a hand reached out, grabbing him by the front of his costume and dragging him inside. He didn't have time to get his bearings before he was shoved off to the side, stumbling into the wall. When he looked up, Maru was being pulled into the stairwell with him, the look on his face mirroring Yoko's confusion over the sudden turn of events.

Yoko eyed their assailant warily, wondering if it was the guy who was actually being paid to entertain at the party for a split second before he realized that his outfit looked nothing like Doraemon (and actually looked a lot more like a middle aged man suited up in all his best fishing gear, including waders and a floppy hat that seemed to be covered in lures), so that couldn't possibly be the case. Not to mention children's entertainers weren't usually known for shaking down the competition.

That only left the possibility of some sort of ambush. As soon as Yoko realized this, he straightened and tried to take a fighting stance, but the sudden change in positions left him tangled up awkwardly in his cape instead. He swore and tried to free himself as nonchalantly as possible (which was not very) and lowered his voice in an effort to sound intimidating. "Unhand my sidekick!"

The mystery man dropped his hand from the front of Maru's costume and mumbled a quick, startled-sounding apology, the lures on his hat tinkling softly with the movement.

"If you don't I'll--" Yoko stopped, blinking as the stranger reached up and smoothed Maru's cape out. Well, that was unexpected. Bad guys almost never responded to the first threat you threw out there. "Uh..."

Maru, glanced at Yoko and then back at their assailant, his face breaking out into a bright, if slightly confused, grin. "Ohno-san?"

"Hey." The stranger gave a little wave and Yoko hopped a few steps forward to get a better look at his face, still struggling against his cape.

"What are you doing here?" Yoko and Maru both asked at the same time, earning them a shrug and a bored look.

"Meeting a friend. You guys?"

"Uh... us, too. Meeting our friend, that is. Not yours." Yoko mumbled, looking off to the side, as he finally managed to free himself from his cape. His cape that Ohno was currently giving the eye and that Yoko really, really didn't know how to explain. Maybe, if they just acted like everything was normal, Ohno wouldn't ask.

"Small world!" Maru said and clapped Ohno on the shoulder. "You know, I was just thinking the other day that I should call you--"

"Maru." Yoko gave him a pointed look that he hoped translated into _let's get out of here before he starts asking questions about why we're running around in capes and big spandex body suits_. "We should probably let Ohno go meet his friend. We don't want to keep him waiting."

"But he just--" Maru winced as Yoko elbowed him. "Oh... OH. I mean, yeah. Yoko's right. We wouldn't want to keep your friend waiting."

Ohno sighed and put out a hand to stop them as Yoko tried to tug Maru away. "You're looking for the Shadow King?"

"Oh, do you know him?" Maru's eyes lit up as he looked at Ohno. "Because he was supposed to meet us at 5:30, but when we got here they were having a birthday party and he doesn't seem to be around."

"Maru!" Yoko gave another elbow to the ribs and leaned in, whispering harshly, "What part of _secret_ identity don't you understand?"

Maru at least had the decency to look apologetic as he whispered back, "He already knew about the Shadow King. I just thought--"

Yoko opened his mouth to retort and a soft cough interrupted him. He and Maru both turned to find Ohno watching them, the corners of his mouth twitching with amusement. "You're Wonderboy and Paaaan, right?"

"We--uh, depends." Yoko narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "Why are you asking?"

"I'm The Angler." Ohno smiled lazily and thrust his hands into the pockets of his vest.

Yoko gaped. Well, he hadn't been expecting that one, either. Tonight was just full of fun surprises.

Maru snapped his fingers. "Ohhhh, so _that's_ why you always came to the Uta no Onii-san set smelling like lasers and fear."

Ohno shrugged. "Those are really hard scents to cover."

"You should try this body wash that I have. Citrus Mango Splash. It covers up just about _anything_ \--"

"Wait." Yoko held his hands up, effectively cutting off what he knew would end up being a fifteen minute diatribe on the beauty of Bath and Bodyworks if he let Maru have his way. "If you're The Angler, then that means that you came with The Shadow King?" Yoko watched Ohno nod and felt his mouth draw downward into a frown. "You're late."

"We had trouble finding parking." Ohno waved a hand in the general direction of the stairs. "A--uh, The Shadow King wanted me to come find you guys while he looked for a spot."

"Oh." Yoko's frown eased up a little. "That's good, then. I guess."

"I knew it was just some sort of mix-up," Maru added, patting Yoko on the back and sounding annoyingly cheerful. Yoko gave him a look that only qualified as slightly sulky and shifted away, ready to launch into a tirade about how it was really not cool to make people wait around for you or trick them into hanging around some kid's birthday party, when footsteps rang out in the stairwell below them.

"Oh-chan, do you have any change? I finally found a space but I only had enough change to fill the meter for thirty minutes." A mop of brown hair popped up over the edge of the railing, followed by a pair of very familiar, very surprised brown eyes.

"Aiba?"

"Yoko?"

Yoko blinked, eyes wide and slightly confused as he tried to make sense of the situation and the sudden appearance of one of the last people he expected to see there.

So, what he'd learned that evening included: Ohno was The Angler. Ohno was here with Shadow. Shadow was currently parking their car, which was also the reason they were late and not that Yoko was being stood up. Aiba was here, and asking Ohno for change for the parking meter, which meant--

"You're the Shadow King?" Maru blurted out, effectively stealing all the thunder from Yoko's dramatic internal revelation.

"Uh..." Aiba gave Maru a shifty-eyed look. "Depends who's asking."

"I'm Paaaan. And this--" Maru threw his arm around Yoko's shoulders as Yoko was too busy gaping dumbly at Aiba to pull away. "Is Wonder Boy."

Aiba blinked.

Yoko pointed at the emblem on the front of his costume and smiled nervously. "WB. Wonder Boy. That's me."

"So, that guy you met online--" Aiba met Yoko's eyes, tilting his head slightly to the side.

"That was, uh. Yeah." Yoko motioned in Aiba's direction.

"You know, I _thought_ a lot of that sounded familiar. You didn't change the facts around very much.”

"Yeah, well, I didn't know it was _you_." Yoko laughed and rubbed at the back of his neck nervously. "And Wanda...?"

"Uh... that's you, I guess." Aiba laughed and it sounded, Yoko thought, almost relieved. "Wanda...Wonder Boy. It was the closest thing I could think of."

Yoko grinned and felt a little relief of his own. Until he stopped to think about it and realized what the was implying. "Wait you--you made me a _girl_?!"

"It was the best I could come up with on short notice."

"You said I had a nice rack!"

"I had to exaggerate a little so you wouldn't ask too many questions," Aiba explained, words trailing off into a nervous giggle as he glanced at Yoko's chest.

"You know, he's kind of right," Maru broke in while Ohno gave a quick nod of agreement.

"You stay out of this." Yoko crossed his arms over his chest self-consciously and sighed, acting a bit more put out than he actually felt to cover his nerves. This was not what he'd been expecting from the night at all. But he wasn't so sure that it was a bad thing. "You'd better have brought at least one robot monkey with you or we are so over."

"There's one out in the car." Aiba grinned. "Do you want to go see her?"

And, okay, it was really hard to stay mad at someone when they were offering you the chance to play with a freaking _robot monkey_. So Yoko did what any self-respecting super secret crime fighter would do and closed the space between them to throw an arm around Aiba's shoulders and guide him back down the stairs. "Well, then, what are we waiting for? Let's go play with your monkey!"

(And if Ohno and Maru snickered at that comment as they followed along behind them, Yoko was way too happy to care.)

\--

It only took a few minutes for them to stumble down the stairs and out to Aiba's car and the incredibly awesome robot monkey waiting there for them, and only a few more after that for the four of them to reach a unanimous decision that, since their plans for the evening were officially a bust (which, it turned out, was the result of Aiba confusing Friday for Saturday when he'd checked over the building's schedule to make sure it was free), the only possible way to salvage the evening was to pile into Aiba's car and head to the closest all night karaoke box.

Which, really, wasn't a bad idea at all.

Especially since Aiba decided to sneak the robot monkey in with them.

Three plates of fries and a page and a half worth of Mr. Children songs later, Yoko was pretty sure that this was the beginning of a beautiful, beautiful rivalry. He also wondered how in the hell he and Aiba had been friends this long and not known about each other's secret alter egos. They were either both masters of hiding things or really oblivious.

(If anyone asked, he was going with the first.)

And later that night as he stumbled out the front door with an arm around Aiba's shoulders and Aiba turned and asked him if he thought they could try the whole fight thing again sometime soon, say, maybe next weekend, Yoko decided that, despite any earlier misgivings, this night could not have been more perfect.

Perfect enough that his bitching was half-hearted at best when he told Aiba yes, he would definitely like to try it again sometime, and Maru and Ohno burst into applause behind him.


	3. Epilogue

If it all began with an ordinary looking online ad, then it ended with a case of beer and a game of Mario Kart.

"So I've been thinking," Aiba started, and if he'd been talking to anyone but Yoko those words probably would have been the first clue that the conversation was going nowhere good. But Yoko wasn't like other people and had a much different (read: virtually non-existent) sense of self-preservation. He liked to think of it as laughing in the face of danger.

"About what?"

"We've been fighting each other a lot lately." Aiba paused to guide his cart around a particularly treacherous bend in the track. Yoko's bandaged right hand chose that moment to twinge, a physical reminder of the most recent of said battles and Yoko's newly formed opinion that robot monkeys were cool in theory (and occasionally for karaoke), but not in practice. Not when that practice involved a lot of screeching and biting and pommeling him with their stupid metal tails.

"Yeah."

"So, normally when a hero and a villain fight each other this much, there's, you know... more to it," Aiba said, nonchalant enough that it took a few minutes for the words to filter their way past the beer induced haze around Yoko's brain.

When they did, he whipped his head around, giving Aiba a wide-eyed look and not even caring when Yoshi went plummeting off the edge of the track and into oblivion. "Are you saying you want to..."

"Be your nemesis?"

"Yeah. That. Are you saying that?"

Aiba shrugged and offered up a grin that was positively diabolical. "Unless you had someone else in mind."

"No," Yoko answered, and if it was a bit too loud or enthusiastic, it was only because he needed to be sure the other could hear him over the TV. "I mean--yes. Not yes I had someone else in mind, but _yesIwanttobeyourarchnemesis_."

Aiba watched him for a long moment before he turned back to the game. When he spoke again, his voice held the promise of endless epic battles and sinister plots to come. "Then it's settled."

"Great." Yoko turned his eyes back to the TV screen in an effort to hide the fact that he was grinning like an idiot. "So... that's it? We don't need to sign a blood pact or anything?"

"I think I'm supposed to kill one of your friends and then you're supposed to throw me off of a building or cut off one of my arms or something equally dramatic." Aiba pursed his lips in thought. "But I thought we could just call up Maru and Ohno and maybe go out for karaoke to celebrate instead."

"I like that idea better," Yoko agreed and stopped trying to hide his smile.

And that was where the story ended, with beer and Mario Kart and an all-night karaoke session on the horizon.

It might not have been that epic as far as endings went, but for something that started with a snoopy brother and a personal ad, it wasn't all that bad.

And, besides, it wasn't like it was _really_ an ending so much as another beginning.


End file.
